Shared from the 1/7/2023 San Antonio Express eEdition

Neighbors fighting rural concert venue

Plans call for 5,000-seat arena off two-lane road in Dripping Springs

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Photos by Jerry Lara/Staff photographer

Bob Ayres, owner of the Shield Ranch, walks near the site of a planned 32-acre concert venue Thursday near Dripping Springs. Ayers and area residents want the project stopped, citing traffic, wastewater and quality-of-life concerns.

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Signs lining Crumley Ranch Road advertise a website launched by Dripping Springs residents and environmental groups in opposition to the planned concert site.

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Jerry Lara/Staff photographer

Bob Ayres is concerned about a planned concert venue’s effects on his next-door property, the Shield Ranch, an environment conservation and educational site.

A developer wants to bring a 5,000-seat concert venue to a rural, two-lane road in Dripping Springs, about an hour and a half northeast of San Antonio — but neighbors are singing a different tune.

The so-far-unnamed Fitzhugh Road concert venue started making waves in the summer of 2021, when curious neighbors noticed contractors and developers around a vacant, 32-acre property near the middle of the 8-mile-long road just west of Austin in Hays County.

Bob Ayres, who co-owns the 6,400-acre Shield Ranch in Dripping Springs with his family members, says his property backs up to the proposed venue. Ayres does not live on Shield Ranch, but it is mostly an environmental conservation property, with a small portion set aside for private educational tours and student visits.

After doing some digging and talking to the developers, he said he was shocked to learn the open-air amphitheater would become his next-door neighbor.

“That immediately became a concern to us,” Ayres said, “because they are on the other side of the fence from us, and it would be profoundly impactful on our land and the whole community around us.”

The venue is being developed by Blizexas LLC, a California-based real estate developer that operates a similar venue in Saratoga, Calif. There, the 2,500-seat open air venue named Mountain Winery features a fine dining restaurant, regular seasonal concerts, a winery, multiple event spaces, golf carts, and a stage with full sound and lighting equipment.

The details of the similar space planned for Fitzhugh Road have not yet been fleshed out, said Bill LeClerc, director of real estate and investments for Lexor Investments, the parent company of Blizexas. But he said like Mountain Winery, the Fitzhugh Road venue will “embrace the natural beauty and landscape around it and deliver a different type of concert experience that currently we don’t believe exists in the Austin market.”

LeClerc added that the company plans to abide by all regulatory state and county guidelines and obtain the proper permits. Its goal is to have the venue up and running by the spring of 2025.

Construction has not begun on the property yet, as Blizexas awaits various permit approvals from Hays County and the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality. The property is currently a vacant lot with shrubbery and woods.

But Ayres and other neighbors say they won’t stop until the concert venue project is shelved once and for all.

Sue Munns has lived directly across the street from the proposed space for 25 years with her husband, Tom. She says that the two-lane road can’t handle the traffic associated with a concert venue, and she’s concerned about water, light and noise pollution’s impact on the small Dripping Springs community.

“The peace that we live with out here is something that’s very special, and then throw in what I assume will be significant light pollution, and possibly pyrotechnics or fireworks shows,” and she’ll no longer be able to live in peace, Munns said.

Fitzhugh Road connects U.S. 290 and FM 12 in northern Hays County. The twisting road is home to several breweries and other small businesses, as well as a few large ranch properties and several houses. The famed Barton Creek — which feeds into Barton Springs in downtown Austin — snakes alongside the road, and even crosses it at one point.

The road is becoming increasingly populated —signs that advertise construction of new housing developments and office spaces dot the winding road.

But there are also signs of pushback against the large developments, like at the intersection of Crumley Ranch Road, where a large green sign hung on a fence says “Stop Fitzhugh Concert Venue.com.” The sign leads people to a website for a coalition of neighbors who oppose the venue, joined by big-name environmental groups like the Austin-based Save Our Springs Alliance, Travis Audubon, the Greater Edwards Aquifer Alliance and the Save Barton Creek Association.

The neighbors are concerned, namely, about the venue’s plan to operate an on-site wastewater treatment plant, and to dispose of up to 12,000 gallons of treated effluent per day via a drip irrigation system on the property. At a Texas Commission of Environmental Quality hearing on the wastewater permit application in late November, dozens of Dripping Springs resident showed up to oppose the plan, speaking for more than an hour in opposition to the venue.

The residents worry that the effluent, as well as stormwater runoff and other operational water waste, will negatively impact the Barton Springs watershed.

They’re also concerned about noise and light pollution. Though the property is just beyond the city limits of Dripping Springs, the city itself is one of just 34 on the planet officially designated Dark Sky Communities, which denotes a lack of light pollution and a wealth of stellar star viewing at night.

The ultimate goal of the Stop Fitzhugh Concert Venue coalition is, of course, to stop the venue from coming. But considering the space is in unincorporated Hays County, where officials can do little to stop it, the venue looks destined to come anyway.

And that’s not exactly music to the ears of neighbors who moved to the area specifically to get away from the lights and sounds of big city life, Ayres said.

“There is deep concern in the neighborhood about the quality of life impacts from this concert venue,” he said.

Annie Blanks writes for the Express-News through Report for America, a national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms. ReportforAmerica.org . annie.blanks@express-news.net.

“The peace that we live with out here is something that’s very special, and then throw in what I assume will be significant light pollution, and probably pyrotechnics …”
Sue Munns, Fitzhugh Road resident

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